El Loco vs El Mundial — Square Ball 16/6/26

Smile for the camera

Written by: Chris McMenamy

Scanning through the fixtures for this year’s World Cup, I tried to be methodical in picking out the games I actually wanted to watch. Staying up past 2am on a Saturday to watch Scotland vs Haiti was a no-go, but hanging on until 11pm on a Monday night for Marcelo Bielsa’s Uruguay was a no-brainer.

Eight years to the day since Leeds United hired him and a three-year rollercoaster ride began, I wasn’t expecting to see Bielsaball or Tyler Roberts, but I just wanted to catch a glimpse of the great man on the world stage. Even if it ended in a 1-1 draw and I could have just had a couple of hours longer in bed and watched it in the morning, it was still worth it — I think.

Uruguay faced a Saudi Arabia side once again underestimated by many despite having beaten eventual winners Argentina at the last World Cup — and yet still many were shocked when goalkeeper Fernando Muslera fumbled a save right into the path of Abdulelah Al Amri to give Saudi the lead just before half-time. The ITV commentators agreed that it had been a “good save” rather than a spill, which was about as kind as anyone at the TV station was to Bielsa and his players in that first half.

“Uruguay have been rubbish — very poor,” said Karen Carney from the lavish Brooklyn studio, presumably playing her part as Marcelo Bielsa expert on a panel with Jobi McAnuff and the incredibly intense Duncan Ferguson. What ITV spent on getting their entire team to the hipster part of New York City, they evidently failed to adequately budget for insightful punditry leading to this pub table from hell.

Everything about Uruguay’s situation going into this World Cup reeked of group stage combustion. Luis Suarez is a national hero there — which says something about the fandom — and his retirement from international football in September 2024 prompted him to rant about Bielsa’s methods since arriving a year earlier.

Suarez complained that Bielsa “didn’t say hello” to the players in training camps, a heinous crime. His gripe certainly had nothing to do with the fact that he’d been phased out of the team since Bielsa’s arrival, which had more to do with the fact that he looked less like a footballer than he did a toddler waddling around in a full nappy, his knees having given up on him long before the rest of his body.

He left the door open for a World Cup call-up, but Bielsa had no interest. Suarez lives in Miami, where he plays with Leo Messi and other ex-Barcelona geriatrics, and he even announced in a social media video on Monday morning that he would attend his country’s first game, hanging around like a bad smell.

While Suarez was already in town, his national team found themselves stuck in their Playa del Carmen hotel on Sunday, delayed by several hours as missing FIFA paperwork meant their flight couldn’t take off until several hours after its planned departure. Bielsa insisted that it caused no complications in their build-up, but a sluggish first half display suggested otherwise.

I was starting to regret staying up to watch this game by the time it came to the second half kicking off, surrounded by ITV’s negativity, so I switched over to RTE. Never you mind how I did that, but I was glad to be away from the ITVX app, which appeared to have been built by someone who’s never used any form of technology in their lives.

Carney made jibes about expecting to see “this Bielsaball we hear about”, while not having the presence of mind to consider that maybe a World Cup in the baking Miami heat at the end of the longest season in football history wasn’t the time for Uruguay to play like 2019 Leeds. Other commentators online who deigned to stay awake long enough took to their usual mocking of Bielsa and we should be able to forgive them, for they know not what we do.

Bielsa isn’t for mass consumption, he’s for the fans of clubs (and countries) who witnessed his greatness. He’s not faultless, as evidenced by his slightly questionable team selection on Monday evening that forced a tactical rethink at half-time. By which I mean he took one look at Darwin Nunez’s total inefficacy and told him to sit the second half out.

Uruguay turned the screw after half-time and gave Saudi Arabia enough problems that they immediately regressed into a low block, hoping to hold on for dear life. Saudi ‘keeper Mohammed Al-Owais was excellent in his country’s famous 2-1 win against Argentina in 2022 and produced a similar performance throughout most of this game, pulling off a string of saves. Uruguay could feel aggrieved that their opponents weren’t reduced to ten men when Agustin Canobbio appeared to be kicked in the thigh in the 55th minute, but referee Maurizio Mariani didn’t even blow for a foul.

Maxi Araujo eventually equalised for Uruguay with ten minutes remaining, pouncing on a mistake by Al-Owais, and his side had enough chances to go and win only for Saudi Arabia to hold out.

Uruguay are missing a creative spark, someone capable of unlocking defences. Real Madrid midfielder Fede Valverde feels wasted on the right hand side and Manuel Ugarte looks like an expensive Michael Brown in midfield. Defenders Ronald Araujo and Jose Maria Gimenez missed the game through injury and their return dates are unclear, while attacking midfielder Giorgian de Arrascaeta was rested in the hope of being fit for the final two group matches.

Much to the chagrin of Bielsa, the post-match questioning only briefly focused on his frustration with the first-half performance before an American journalist asked for an explanation as to why he didn’t smile in the FIFA-mandated pre-tournament media day photos:

His answer? “I don’t have to give any explanation, the picture was taken the way it was taken,” Bielsa said. “I’m not a model.” Stupid questions get stupid answers, pal.

Bielsa didn’t stop there, taking particular issue with the tone of the question:

“I was facing the cameras, and that’s the picture they got of me. I have no response. I should also explain why I don’t look at the people I’m talking to, but those aren’t explanations I have to give.

“I think there’s a limit to what needs explaining. If one wears glasses, why? If one looks up or down into the eyes — do all these things need explaining? Explanations are sought for situations that don’t need explaining. There’s nothing wrong with wearing glasses or looking up or down. It’s not an obligation to act like a model to respect demands that have no basis.”

If Bielsa had been one to look up when speaking, I presume he might have seen the journalist crying onto his keyboard as he typed up the response to his brilliant, insightful question — a question that was made all the more stupid by the fact the photoshoot resulted in a stone cold Bielsa classic:

Although the knives remain out among Bielsa’s detractors, his team are still in with a good chance of reaching the knockout stages of this World Cup, something they failed to achieve in 2022 with a much stronger squad. All they have to do is beat Cape Verde, which should be straight forward enough, right?…